My veins fill with salt at your words. You are a surface distraction,
a copy, a mimicry of what I once had. Drinking from you seems refreshing
at first. I take my fill, gulp you down, and inhale your words and wisdom
until my lungs are filled. I do not realize until it’s too late that your love,
our connection, is saltwater, as dense as the Great Salt Lake.
Inflammation and pain on the inside cuts of my anatomy flaring up,
every old wound on my liver, my ribcage, my closet romantic’s heart.
I’m drowning. This is not the comfort I sought, not the replacement
I was looking for. But, then, stark relief, you brought to me.
The realization that maybe saltwater love could be better.
I could learn to drink from my own fresh well.
Your dead sea water could keep me afloat as I grew my own limbs.
I am my own salt of the earth, but not alone.
Amanda Steele 